[NYTr] Tropical Storm Noel: Same storm, different social systems

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Workers World - Nov 15, 2007
http://www.workers.org/2007/world/storm-1115

Same storm, different social systems

By Caleb T. Maupin

Heart-breaking stories are coming out of the Dominican Republic and
Haiti about people washed away in floods caused by Hurricane Noel.

More than 100 people are estimated to have died in the Dominican
Republic. A man in Piedra Blanca saw his 70-year-old mother swept away
in a rush of water. Another man tried to get away from his car when it
stalled but was swallowed by the flood.

The Associated Press described how the civil defense force of the
Dominican Republic, combined with countless volunteers, tried to
evacuate people from the path of the deadly hurricane but did not have
enough boats. Civilians desperately volunteered their boats to the
heroic effort to save people from the natural disaster.

The estimated deaths are even higher for Haiti: 140. People were simply
not evacuated in time and were consumed by floods and mudslides.

In Cuba, however, the story was different. Although the island was
struck harshly, not a single Cuban lost their life to the hurricane.

ABC News described how the Revolutionary Armed Forces went door to
door, to every home in the path of the hurricane, and evacuated those
within. All were accounted for.

Some 30,000 people were evacuated with speed and efficiency.

What makes Cuba different? Its socialist government, which has been
able to allocate resources and carry out a plan to protect the people
in the event of a natural disaster.

In the Dominican Republic, however, attempts at social change were
squashed. When the people in 1962 elected a popular reformer named Juan
Bosch, he was overthrown in a bloody U.S.-backed coup. In 1965, when
the coup regime appeared in danger of being toppled, the U.S. sent
42,000 Marines to occupy the country. The forces of U.S. capitalism
have kept their grip on the Dominican Republic ever since.

In Haiti, it has been similar. The U.S. has backed dictators there to
keep the rule of Wall Street in effect. Francois Duvalier, and later
his son Jean-Claude Duvalier, ruled by terror, suppressing all who
challenged capitalism and injustice. In 2004, the popularly elected
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was physically kidnapped by U.S.
personnel and sent into exile.

But in Cuba a revolution against the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio
Batista succeeded in 1959. Now the factories, farms and banks are
publicly owned, rather than in the hands of foreign corporations and
their henchmen. This enables the government to prioritize people, not
profits.

In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez is attempting to build a socialist
economy. He has already volunteered to assist the people of the
Dominican Republic and Haiti. According to El Universal, a Latin
American news agency, Simon Bolivar Taskforces are already being sent
to the Dominican Republic from Venezuela to help rebuild.

Chavez has said his goal is a society “based in solidarity, fraternity,
love, justice, liberty and equality.” As the people rebuild after the
hurricane in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the system of
socialism has proven it can save lives in a crisis. 

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